Sun 1/5 @ 8:30PM
There’s a disconnect between Sarah Clanton Schaffer’s backstory and her music.
The South Carolina native never strayed too far from her native Greenville, attending college there and spending several years producing and booking a rustic music festival in a local state park.
And after touring with the David Mayfield Parade, fronted by David Mayfield of Kent’s roosty/bluegrass-steeped Mayfield Family, and joining them for the PBS Bluegrass Underground, she had Mayfield produce her debut album Chasin’ a Feeling, released this past summer. And it was recorded at the bucolic SUMA Studio in northeast Ohio, on the rural outskirts of Painesville.
So why does she sound so sophisticated and urbane, as if she’d be more at home in a New York cabaret than at a bluegrass festival? Perhaps it’s partly that her instrument of choice is cello (she also plays guitar and mandolin) on which she studied classical music from early childhood. But it’s also her vocals — a tad jazzy, a tad bluesy, a lot sensuous, smart and sly. She’s garnered comparisons to Rickie Lee Jones, which aren’t entirely off the mark.
In addition, her lyrics are witty, sparkling and literate, and her music often has a dark, sardonic Brechtian strain.
Oddly, for her upcoming show at the Beachland Tavern, she’s paired with two area artists whose music exudes rural roots.
Burton’s Rebekah Jean plays Americana with a big tilt toward country. David Mayfield’s sister Jessica Lea sang some vocals on her album Love May Be Real But It Ain’t Enough. (Schaffer sounds like someone who would never say “ain’t.)
And northeast Ohio-based sextet Ty Kellogg & The Knots are pure classic country.
Tickets are $10.
Cleveland, OH 44110